Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined “Your World” on Wednesday to discuss the state of the Republican Party after former President Donald Trump fired a strike letter to the Republican National Committee to stop running his name on behalf of candidates who according to him is “RINOS”.
PORTMAN: People will use his name in their requests, and I’m sure many will. He’s very popular among the Republican base … As a party, we need to return to the policy, the issues where the American people generally agree with us. This is where the Republicans did well in 2020, except above.
NEIL CAVUTO: But you’re not on the same page, are you? These fights between you and the former president continue. And given the enmity between Trump and [the] Senate [Republican] leader, you have to ask yourself if Mitch McConnell is in a separate universe and that Trump’s supporters are in a separate universe from him. I wonder, where is it going? Are you worried about it?
PORTMAN: With all due respect, I do not agree with you that this is about policy. Mitch McConnell and President [Trump] has very little difference on policy. This is not a policy debate. It’s a personality issue.
CAVUTO: Do you think it hurts your party?
PORTMAN: It could hurt the party. This already makes it more divided. But let’s return to the policy. This is where we agree, this is where the American people want us to focus. Our job as a party is to help organize the democracy around certain ideas. You have organizers left and right of our democracy. We are the ones who would say that the deficit matters. Tax reform is important to promote jobs and make tax cuts work. We are the ones who say that independence of energy is a good thing, not a bad thing.
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